Keeping Our Cool

When you're a young hot rodder, having air conditioning in your classic truck is the last thing on your mind. How fast and how low your ride is are the priorities, and there isn't much time or money budgeted for anything else. After a few summers of driving out to shows and cruising, however, most of us (especially here in the sweltering Southwest) come of age pretty quickly and decide that an air-conditioned cruiser is less of a luxury and more of a necessity. The same obviously holds true in the sunshine state, where over 26 years ago, Al Sedita began supplying OE-style A/C units for non-equipped Mustangs.

Today, a quarter century later, Classic Auto Air Manufacturing Co. has a massive inventory of factory air/heat parts and model-specific climate-control systems for nearly every popular year, make and model car or truck from the '70s and up. When searching for an A/C system for our '67 Chevy longbed, we quickly settled on Classic Auto Air's Perfect Fit Series climate-control system made just for this body-style truck. The in-dash heat/cool and defrost system replaces the old heater/defrost box, cleans up the firewall, and achieves the sought-after factory air look. This kit is also available with your choice of factory-reproduction, trick billet ball, or under-dash mounted louvers for those not wanting to drill their dash. Kits come complete with the heater/A/C unit (also known as the power pack), ducting, flex hose, firewall block off, louver kit and components to modify the existing control panel, condenser, receiver lines, fittings and hoses, and even a new glovebox lining made of ABS plastic. Classic Auto Air also recommends the use of a Sanden air compressor for their many superior qualities and supplies them with any of the necessary bracketry from Alan Grove components.

Once the system arrived via UPS, we wasted no time outfitting the '67 in our Tech Center. With the last fitting tightened, we tested the system and were truly impressed at the amount of air blowing out of the ducts. All that was left was leak-checking and charging the system, which was left to the professionals and their mobile charging unit. For more information on this or any unit available from Classic Auto Air or their restoration service for all factory A/C units, be sure and contact them using the information in the source box.